Guide to Irish Castles, Manors, and Country Houses

of THE PROVINCE OF LEINSTER for:

-- Co. KILDARE --

Notes: (1) -- M. Bence-Jones, A Guide to Irish Country Houses, London, 1988.

Notes: (2) -- Carton -- The original house at Carton was built in early 17th Century by a branch of the Talbots of Malahide. Sir Wm. Talbot, Bart., Recorder of the City of Dublin, had obtained a lease of the lands of "Caretowne" in 1603 from Gerald, 14th Earl of Kildare. Sir Wm. was MP for Co. Kildare in 1613. The Talbot family were Catholic at the time. Sir Wm's dau. Mary, married Sir John Dongan, Bart., of Castletown (who was also Catholic). Sir Wm's younger son, Col. Richard Talbot, eventually Duke of Tyrconnell, died in Limerick in 691, having fought with James II at the Battle of the Boyne, and been the King's principal adviser during his disastrous stay in Ireland. The Duke was attained the year he died and his lands were forfeited to the Crown. In 1703, the house was sold at auction & was purchased by Major-General Richard Ingoldsby, who was Master-General of the Ordnance and one of the Lords Justice of Ireland at the time of his death in 1711. Richard's son, Henry Ingoldsby, MP for the city of Limerick, died in 1731 and his cousin and heir, Thos. Ingoldsby sold the reversion of the lease back to the 19th Earl of Kildare in 1739. James, 20th Earl of Kildare and from 1766 the Duke of Leinster. In 1949 it was purchased by the late Lord Brocket, who remodled the house. His son, David now lives there... He has opened the house to the public.

Notes: (3) -- Castletown (Conolly) -- was the 1st great Palladian house to have been built in Ireland. It was begun in 1722 for Speaker Conolly, so named because he was elected Speaker of the Irish House of Commons in 1715 (a position he relinquished only shortly before his death in 1729.) He was generally acknowledged to have been the richest man in Ireland in his day. The Castle was designed by Italian architect A. Galilei. After the Speaker's death, Mrs Conolly lived on in Castletown until 1752, then her nephew Wm. moved into Castltown with his wife (Lady Anne) and seven children. They had been living at Leixlip Castle nearby, (which remained in the Conolly family until 1914). Wm. died in 1754, and Lady Anne then moved in their house in Staffordshire boarding up Castletown. Tom Conolly, the heir, returned to Castletown when he came of age, and in 1758 he married Lady Louisa Lennox, the dau. of the 2nd Duke of Richmond (she being only 15 yrs. old at the time).Louisa finished the interior of Castletown and lived there for sixty years, when she died in 1821. Castletown remained in the Conolly family until 1965 when it was sold by Lord Carew, whose mother was a Conolly. It was bought for splitting up and development. For two years the house stood empty. In 1967 the house and 120 acres were purchase by Mr. Desmond Guinness, for the headqts of the Irish Georgian Society. The Society is restoring the house...and now open to the public.

Notes: (4) -- Leixlip Castle -- The 'Black' Castle of Leixlip was built high on a rock, in a position of commanding importance at the junction of the Rye Water with the River Liffey. The 1st stronghold was built soon after 1170 by Adam de Hereford, a follower of Strongbox. Leixlip was a castle of the Pale, the ring of castles that surrounded the rich lands north and west of Dublin. At the close of the 13th castle, the de Herefords were succeeded at Leixlip by a family called Pypard, and in 1317 Edw. Bruce, the brother of Robert, encamped at Leixlip for 4 days during their invasion of Ireland (doing some destruction of the town and church). In 1494, Henry VII granted Lsixlip to Gerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, but was taken back in 1534. In 1569, the Manor and Castle of Leixlip were granted to Sir Nicholas Whyte, Master of the Rolls, whose descendants remained in possession for almost 200 yrs. The Whytes were Catholic Loyalists, and did not join the Rebellion of 1641, but were still ordered to surrender themselves to the Lords Justices, where they were imprisoned in Dublin Castle and kept imprisoned for a long time. Several members of the Whyte family are buried in Leixlip Church, inc. Sir Nicholas Whyte, Kt., who married Lady Ursula Moore, dau. of 1st Viscount Drogheda. In 1728, Speaker Conolly (see notes 3) purchased from John Whyte the manor, town and lands of Leixlip, etc. and 3 yrs later his nephew and heir, the Rt. Hon. Wm. Conolly, purchased the castle, garden, and outhouses which had previously been excepted. Speaker Conolly died in 1729 and his widow, Katherine, lived on alone at Castletown until her death in 1752. Her nephew Wm. lived at Leixlip and it was here that their son Tom "Squire" Conolly was born. The Conollys owned Leixlip until 1914. One of the fortunate results of the many different lettings (after 1914) is that Leixlip has escaped being much altered since abt. 1750. The 5th Lord Decies (who had purchased Leixlip in 1914), put Leixlip on the market in 1923, but it was his son who sold it to a Dublin builder in 1945, who in 1958 disposed of it to the present owners...PS: Leixlip was for 10 yrs the nerve centre of the Irish Georgian Society, when the hdqtrs was then moved to Castletown (see notes (3) ).

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